A bicyclist rides along a trail that runs alongside Alpine Road in Menlo Park, Calif., on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Stanford is trying to build a trail that would run from the existing trail along Alpine Road all the way to Portola Valley. less

A bicyclist rides along a trail that runs alongside Alpine Road in Menlo Park, Calif., on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Stanford is trying to build a trail that would run from the existing trail along Alpine Road ... more

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

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Richard Hall walks along a trail that runs alongside Alpine Road in Menlo Park, Calif., on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Stanford is trying to build a trail that would run from the existing trail along Alpine Road all the way to Portola Valley. less

Richard Hall walks along a trail that runs alongside Alpine Road in Menlo Park, Calif., on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Stanford is trying to build a trail that would run from the existing trail along Alpine Road ... more

Photo: Laura Morton, Special To The Chronicle

Image 4 of 4

No happy trails for these Stanford plans

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It seemed so simple in 2000. Build a pair of recreational trails from the Stanford campus to the surrounding foothills and Santa Clara County would allow the university to put up 5 million square feet of new buildings on the campus.

But 10 years later, the university is still wrangling with environmentalists and local government officials over where those trails should go and what they should look like.

"No one anticipated there were going to be any problems at all," said Larry Horton, Stanford's director of government and community affairs. "But it's become the single-most complicated issue I've ever worked on."

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The agreement called for the university to spend about $19 million on the new trails extending into two counties.

Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills and Santa Clara County either have signed or are ready to sign the trail agreement, but San Mateo County has refused, rejecting the university's plan to take one of the trails through unincorporated county land along busy Alpine Road.

"Our dispute ... is that it really didn't meet the definition of a trail," said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, one of two supervisors who negotiated with Stanford over the trail plan. "Instead, it's kind of a half-hearted sidewalk right next to a road."

Trails for buildings

The trail plan was one of more than 100 mitigation measures Santa Clara County required before giving the university the go-ahead for the huge construction program that has transformed the campus in recent years. Problems arose almost from the moment the agreement was signed.

While environmental groups wanted trails that cut through the huge expanses of open space that border the central campus, Stanford officials were having none of that. Instead, they wanted the trails to skirt the north and south edges of the campus, paralleling heavily traveled expressways like Page Mill Road and Alpine Road.

But Santa Clara County backed the university and, in 2006, signed off on routes for the trails.

Under the agreement, the trail on the campus' south side, called the S1 trail, would run from the southeast corner of Page Mill Road and Foothill Expressway, continue along Page Mill Road to Deer Creek Road and then leave the highway and cross a ridge on its way to the Arastradero Nature Preserve.

The northern trail, called the C1 route, would connect with an existing trail along Sand Hill Road near Menlo Park's southern border and then follow Alpine Road to Arastradero Road.

The environmental groups reluctantly agreed to the proposed southern trail, but the Committee for Green Foothills sued to block the northern trail's construction along Alpine Road.

Putting a supposed nature trail alongside a road where hikers would breathe in auto exhaust doesn't make much sense, said Brian Schmidt, a Green Foothills spokesman.

Lawsuits envisioned

The court tossed out Green Foothills' suit in February. San Mateo County already had decided to steer clear of the dispute. A March 2007 staff report warned that residents along the section of the trail that would cut through county lands were unhappy about the project. So were environmentalists, it added.

"Implementation would probably lead to lawsuits against San Mateo County," the report said.

That was enough for the supervisors, who voted not to accept $8.4 million Stanford was offering to pay for trail construction.

"We didn't think we should put a trail right in someone's backyard and along a busy street," Gordon said. "We took our position (back in 2007) and nothing has changed."

If San Mateo County doesn't sign the agreement by the end of 2011, Stanford would pay the $8.4 million to Santa Clara County, which could use it for a variety of recreational improvements, including trails.

Both San Mateo County and the Committee for Green Foothills believe that would be a better use of the money, but university officials are convinced they still can cut a deal with the county and get the entire northern trail built as planned.

"The trail would be an appreciated and valuable addition to the area," said Horton of Stanford. "We want to keep talking and see what's going to happen."